UK gets first ‘marriage proposal agency’

JANE BRADLEY

IT IS meant to be an intimate occasion for every happy couple keen to make a lifetime commitment to one another.

But now the traditional route of dropping to one knee and proffering a ring is no longer enough for people seeking a proposal to remember. Instead they are turning to marriage proposal consultants to create glamorous and extravagant scenarios in which to pop the question.

The trend for bespoke proposals started in the US, where it is not uncommon to fork out more than a month’s salary to create the perfect setting.

Now the service has arrived in the UK, with the country’s first proposal planning business based in London. Since setting up 18 months ago, The Proposers has overseen 170 proposals, including one in Scotland. Prices start at £100 for two bespoke ideas to tens of thousands of pounds for an intricately planned and executed event.

Tiffany Wright and Daisy Amodio, who set up the firm, were contacted by project engineer Iain Young from Aberdeen, who wanted to surprise his girlfriend Robyn Hodgson on a trip to London.

“I saw an advert for a proposal planner in a men’s magazine and thought it sounded like just what I was looking for,” he said

Wright said: “I think he has been our only man who had literally no thoughts on what he wanted to do. It gave us the chance to be as creative as we liked.”

Keen to tap into Hodgson’s lifelong fascination with weddings, the pair designed a romantic event which led to Young popping the question surrounded by wedding dresses at an exclusive bridal shop in West London.

Robyn’s sister, Lauren, posed as a live mannequin in its window, and the whole thing was captured on film for a fly-on-the-wall documentary about The Proposers.

The pair also organised a musician to write a song for the couple and perform it while disguised as a busker. It will be played at their wedding next summer,

“It was such a lovely idea – I was just in shock, it was so overwhelming. I’m just surprised he managed to pull it off without me catching on – he couldn’t have done that without help.”

Wright and Amodio said they started their agency after helping a man who was struggling to spell out the words: “Make me the happiest man alive” in tealights in a park.